I find Dan Brown to be exceedinly pretentious, and I can't help but think that he has modeled Langdon after his own vision of himself.I'm only glad I read this book because of all the hype surrounding it at the time of its publication. I found the theories mentioned about the Virgin Mary would not be new to anyone with the most basic familiarity of the early Christian movement to eradicate Paganism. ( )

I found this book much more interesting once I had actually seen a lot of the places mentioned in it. I also recieved the illustrated edition as a gift, which made it even more enjoyable. If you enjoyed this book and you haven't read Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, go get it immediately. I found it better than this one. ( )

This is definitely one of the best thriller books you will ever read. And it is not only because it is cleverly written and full of surprises, but also because Dan Brown knows the history and how to play with it. He plays this game so good, you never know where he stands when it comes to religion. Throughout the book, I genuinely wanted to learn about bible and DaVinci - DaVinci I get, but I am not even christian. I think we tend to keep a rigid stand about religion- both for believers and non-believers. I don't think there is only one way to look at it: which I believe was the motto for this book. I am still confused on why the book or the movie was banned in Muslim countries. Muslims do not even believe Jesus was a virgin or never been married. Qur'an does not go to that detail. I wanted to dig more into pagans and history behind this book and purchased "Cracking the Da Vinci Code". I did not like it. I think magic is to wrap it with intelligence and excitement as Dan Brown did. One of my favorite books of all time. That ending though: after a high pace book that keep you guessing, waves crashed down at the pyramid: "the quest for the holy grail was to kneel before Mary Magdalene"

ps: Please avoid the movie at all costs. It didn't have one third of the spark this book had. It also missed a lot of points...

You have to give it to Dan Brown: he knows how to write a fast-paced, breath-taking thriller; in fact you eat up the pages so quickly that you don't realise how bad the writing is or how preposterous and unlikely the plot, and I'm sure that if I had spent any more time analysing the various clues and revelations I would have been able to poke holes in them as big as an Emmental cheese. But that's literary fast food for you: it satisfies an immediate need but you don't spend any more time than necessary on it or thinking how special it was. ( )

Brown's writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad. In some passages scarcely a word or phrase seems to have been carefully selected or compared with alternatives

Whenever I read a 454 page book in one sitting, it's probably a safe bet for me to think that other people will like the book. Not that my criteria for excellence necessarily matches that of the literary masses -- but the words "breakout thriller" certainly apply here. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is going to make publishing history. Trust me. There are already tables at the local Barnes & Nobles featuring books about the Freemasons, biographies of Leonardo Da Vinci, guidebooks to the Louvre and Renaissance art, all centered around Brown's book. And the book has been out less than two weeks.

The word for ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a rare invertible palindrome. Rotated 180 degrees on a horizontal axis so that it is upside down, it denotes the maternal essence that is sometimes linked to the sport of soccer. Read right side up, it concisely conveys the kind of extreme enthusiasm with which this riddle-filled, code-breaking, exhilaratingly brainy thriller can be recommended.

The story occasionally strains credibility early on. How could a dying man, one wonders, have time to write out intricate mind puzzles even if as Sophie explains, her grandfather "entertained himself as a young man by creating anagrams of famous works of art." Fortunately, Brown's pacing doesn't leave too much time for questions. From the explosive start to the explosive finish, The Da Vinci Code is one satisfying thriller. I see movie rights being sold already. Pick this one up on a long flight home and you'll never know where the time went.

Robert: "We're on a Grail quest, Sophie. Who better to help us than a knight?" (about Leigh)

Leigh: "Those who seek the truth are more than friends. They are brothers."

A cryptex works much like a bicycle's combination lock ... any information to be inserted is written on a papyrus scroll ... rolled around a delicate glass vial of liquid ... vinegar ... If someone attempted to force open the cryptex, the glass vial would break, and the vinegar would quickly dissolve the papyrus. By the time anyone extracted the secret message, it would be a glob of meaningless pulp.

Last words

For a moment, he thought he heard a woman's voice...the wisdom of the ages...whispering up from the chasms of the earth.

A murder in the silent after-hours halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle.

The duo become both suspects and detectives searching not only for Neveu's grandfather's murderer, but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England and history itself.

Haiku summary

Serial killerthriller with a religioustwist. Why all the fuss?(passion4reading)

With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history.

A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself. Brown (Angels and Demons) has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries--from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. The Da Vinci Code is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. --Jeremy Pugh

The secret Catholic organization known as Opus Dei has struck. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been found dead inside the museum, surrounded by eldritch ciphers in invisible ink. It is up to Harvard semiotician Robert Langdon and his French cryptologist partner Sophie Neveu to decode the cipers, and get to the bottom of an ever-widening mystery. They discover that the late curator was the gatekeeper of the "Priory of Sion", a secret society whose members included Leonardo da Vinci, and that he sacrificed his life to protect a vastly important ancient religious relic from Opus Dei. If Langdon and Neveu do not deciper the clues in time, Opus Dei will get its hands on the relic, and havoc will be wrought.… (more)